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Sunday, September 7, 2008

Simple Hope

I’ve always known I have control ‘issues.’ Once recognized, it’s not something easily hidden, but since my move to Africa these issues become more pronounced. I don’t always know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day, let alone three months from now. I get stuck in confusing and often embarrassing situations, whether I’m driving or at the grocery store simply because I don’t know the unspoken rules of society. For someone with problems such as mine these are not pleasant situations.

These may seem like small things and granted, they are, but unfortunately, they indicate a significant lack of trust on my part. My need to be in tight control of my life, to know what is going to happen the next day, week, and month is stunting my relationship with God. I might as well slap Him in the face, because whether I mean to or not I am telling Him that I know better and that I don’t trust him to take care of me. And this leads to an even bigger issue, because if I truly and deeply believed that God is who He says He is, the creator of the universe and everything in it, how could I not trust Him with my life?

All this said and done, I have been reminded by a good friend not to make things more complicated than they are and that this thing called life is really much more simple than we often make it out to be. So at this moment, I’m simply grateful to God for bringing me to a place where I can deal with my issues, where I can grow in my relationship with Him by learning to serve others. He is patient and full of grace and teaching me to not hate the process, but revel in it.